A Walk In The Dark’s Trailer Is Purrty

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Indie platformer A Walk In The Dark has a cat rescuing a lost little girl in a dark, fantasy world; the quarter of Dexter that John owns once lost a fight with his own feet (my bit was obviously the winner there). I see now why they had to place the game in a gothic forest: as a cat owner of four years, I wouldn’t believe the skills he shows off in the trailer below.
Side-scrolling, sillouhettey lovliness seems like an effect that indie developers lean on, but the results here are perfectly pleasing as the cat leaps over spikes and flips gravity in VVVVVV fashion. He sproings rather neatly over spikey things, and gracefully hops from wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling. It reminds me of the time that Dexter ate a tapeworm that he’d just extruded. Good times.

Want to help the kitty pursue the ancient evil through the gothic forest? All we have is a vague 2012 release date. Why not rescue a real one, instead? You can pretent the shelter is a gothic forest, and the administration people are ancient demons.

My thoughts exactly. I’d much rather dredge up console platformers like Sonic and Mario and play those instead. Those had excellent gameplay as well, but their charm is something all these new platformers seem to lack.

This has nothing to do with the game, but rescue cats really are wonderful. We have two and they’re better socialized than any I’ve adopted from a humane society, and there are always cats in need of a good home.

We picked up a couple of kittens from a rescue shelter over the weekend. The admin people seemed pretty nice, though; hardly demonic at all.

On Topic: While the trailer is indeed purr-ty, I’d like to see a little more of the gameplay. We get what, 25 seconds in a two minute trailer? Looks fun, but simple. If there is more to it then I’d like to see it.

No, I think so as well. Due to the simplistic nature of the aesthetics, I really think they should look more towards LIMBO’s animation, which is pretty much everything you could ever dream of regarding graceful animations.

I saw the tag first, and was confused. Then I read the alt-text and found myself rather pleased by the thought of a cat delivering such thoroughly badass dialogue. The cat should really refer to her as its “staff” rather than its “owner”, though, I feel.

It’s moments like these when I wonder why they are making a game.
I mean, that 25 seconds of gameplay shows the game is just another platformer (Maybe with a new gimmick or something) and it also shows the animation quality in-game, which, to be honest, is pretty bad animation quality.
The start on the other hand, is fantastic. So, I come back to my first sentence. Why are they making a game when they could make a very good animated movie?

Another one of these. The silhouette style is just a way to cut down development costs and get the game out quicker. I think Nifflas’ early (2007) shots of NightSky started the trend? Back then, it was called Night Game. Only worked well for LIMBO which had a suitable theme to support the look.